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Monday, December 22, 2014

I recently published my latest posting, a tome on making red wine. After a 5 month break the main reason for writing the post was to refresh my mind on winemaking as we approach the 2015 vintage.

I enjoyed writing the postings that made up a full year in the life of HHF. Some days I got so excited that it amounted to 2 postings in a day. My writing skills improved and the style changed. We now have a record in writing to which we can refer should we choose.

Writing daily journals comes at a cost. Compiling photographs, writing and editing are time consuming. To get everything done at the farm and maintain the writing meant getting up much earlier. Checking and rechecking the language, grammar and whether the post made sense resulted in reading the post up to 4 or 5 times.

So now I still get up early but the energy goes into the farm. There is still cheese making, wine, beer and cider making, More effort is going into improving the way we grow vegetables and fruits.

And if that wasn't enough there was a chance podcast that mentioned bread making by Josie Baker with just one little hint. That resulted in a huge leap in the quality of bread making at HHF and now after years of failure we produce fabulous pure sourdough with wholemeal stone ground Wheat and a pure 100% Rye with seeds. Gone are the bricks.

Then the coup de grace. Accidently came across a patisserie "Icky Sticky" in Lorn which made those traditional French pastries with Crème d'amande, Frangipane etc and topped with fresh fruit. Richard Bertinet's book Dough solved all the recipe problems and I'm having a ball turning out all sorts of great real cakes, tarts and biscuits. What is lovely about these traditional recipes and methods is that they get back to the basics of flour, eggs and butter. Honey has replaced sugar successfully. Once you get a feel for the techniques it is a simple matter to experiment with ingredients.

Can't say there won't be any more posts but at the moment living the lifestyle is consuming a lot of time. Writing was a great mental activity which can't be avoided forever.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

If you are growing your own grapes the
decision to pick rests entirely with yourself. Naturally, weather and
ripeness feature in the decision making. At HHF this involves a
casual walk through the vineyard with a refractometer testing select
grapes from different locations. Experience says that the overall
impression of ripeness will be a degree or two higher than the true
end result. Why is not a mystery. Once the bunches are de-stemmed and
resting in a fermenter the sugar levels of ripe bunches are spread
across not so ripe bunches.

Other considerations are seed maturity
i.e. not green and not too brown, a taste test by crunching seeds in
the mouth give an indication. The skins should also feel a little
silky to touch giving an indication that ripeness is at its peak.

When buying and picking grapes from a
commercial vineyard timing is dictated by their activity. Usually
their winemaker makes a call and getting a share means fitting in
with them. You take what you are given.

A good way to encourage better quality
is to triage the bunches as they are picked. Getting rid of an rot,
shrivelled or green grapes and even any under ripe fruit. The tool of
choice is a pair of short nosed scissors. Their stubby length but
sharp pointy end allows easy gouging out of any unwanted berries. The
handles a rubbery lined making them comfortable to use for extended
periods.

Picking is best in early morning when
the fruit is cool. Crushing and de-stemming can commence immediately.
If the grapes have been transported from another vineyard the picking
bins will go into a refrigeration unit while the crush pad is setup
and any other chores are completed. There is a long day after picking
which involves a lot of cleaning once the grapes a crushed and de-stemmed. An important task is to weigh everything as this is the
basis for payment to the grower but is also the basis for future
calculations of sulphur, Acid and Oak additions.

As the fruit is loaded into the crusher
de-stemmer any good bunches are set aside to be added to the fermenter
as whole bunches which are placed at the bottom. The bunches chosen
are undamaged and don't have green stems nor dried brown stems. What
is required is mature stems which will add some additional tannin
complexity not green herbaceous flavours. The usual ratio is about
10% whole bunches but if it is a particularly ripe year more can be
added. A bit of a guess really. In a an under ripe year 0% may be the
choice.

Once crushed and de-stemming is finished
the resultant fruit and juice is placed under refrigeration for 1-3
days. 30 ppm Potassium Metabisulphite is added. Ideally the
cooling temperature should be about 7 C but using old freezers
results in the outer fruit freezing. Not a bad thing as the freezing
breaks down the skin cells helping release the colour.

This is a good time to drain off 10% of
the juice for Rose. Exactly when depends on how much colour is
wanted. Again a bit of a guess, but 24 hours is a good start.
Experience has shown that a little oak added after fermentation of
rose i.e. at the first racking adds a excellent flavour to the dryness.
Rose is ideally fermented at 20 C.

Reducing the juice by 10% means there
are more skins and less juice adding even more colour.

24 hours after crushing is a good time
to run some tests. Sugar levels should be what is expected. If not
here is the opportunity to add sugar in the form of plain white sugar.
pH should be in the 3.4 to 3.8 range. If it is above 3.8 then the
addition of Tartaric acid may be the solution. Ideally testing for
Total Acidity (TA) is better but that requires some more equipment
and chemicals. Something that most amateurs don't bother with but
then some do. I find pH is a reasonable indicator as to where acidity
lies. We invested in a pH meter rather than pH papers.

After the cold soak the fruit and juice
needs to warm up and the yeast re hydrated. By lowering the
temperature of the yeast gradually it is possible to add it to the
fermenter early. Usually that will be at about 20C.

Ideally the fermentation temperature
should reach and stay at 30 C but certainly don't let it go higher
than 32 C. Plunging of the cap of skins should be performed 3-4 times
each day. This helps add oxygen to the must and aids the yeast.

5-7 days of fermentation should be
followed with 10 days minimum although a total of 21-23 days from
Commencement of cold soak to pressing is ideal. Post fermentation is a
good time to cover the fermenter with plastic wrap and inject some
inert gas such as CO2. We use CO2 because we own a SodaStream which
has a conveniently sized spear pint over which a plastic tube can be
fitted. CO2 or other gas cylinders are expensive to buy and tedious
to rent for short periods.

Usually if the skins have completely
fallen from the surface it is a reasonable guide to press. Pressing
slowly is advantageous in reducing the amount of unpleasant flavours
that can be forced from seeds and stems. Always a good idea to keep
the pressings separate for later use in blending.

We use a fine sieve to reduce the
amount of solids being funnelled into the fermenter. The addition of
oak occurs at this stage in the form of chips. We found that 50%
French and 50% American to be ideal but no more than 6 grams per
litre in total and less if the wine is lighter.

If there is another batch of red still
fermenting the addition of skins from the just pressed batch will add
complexity.

Some people rack the wine 3-4 times before bottling. We found that racking once about 40 or so days after pressing was sufficient to get rid of the gross lees which might impart unpleasant flavours. It is at this time that a decision to add more oak can be accommodated. Ideally a little more sulphur helps, lets say the rest of the 50ppm that we try to stick with.

Bottling commences from 8 months after pressing. Using a Bio Dynamic calendar we choose the best week in each month when turbidity is at its minimum. With reds there will always be some sediment as they age but I'd rather have a bit of sediment and decant . Filtering to me seems to eliminate some of the goodness in the wine that makes it a healthy part of a meal.

About Me

We live on a small acreage. What soil is present is not great but over the years we have established an orchard and vegetable gardens. What is great are the views over our valley. Apart from growing almost all our fruits and vegetables we also make wine, cheese and many other things. We love food and the process of getting it to the table but we also realise that life requires an holistic approach. An holistic view includes paying attention to our impact on the environment, our health and wellbeing. Frugal living does not accurately describe our life as it conjures up images of misery and meanness. We enjoy the best of food, wine and entertainment with a wonderful collection of animals and some people. We're not spenders: we recycle, reuse, glean, build and save. Our lives are about having fun without negatively impacting on the world. The European peasant lifestyle of working hard and eating well, with our addition of fun and laughter, is a closer image.